


Synchronicity's Sunrise

by trilliath



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Companions, F/M, Friendship, Identity, Maybe more - Freeform, Quarian Culture, Rannoch, Sentience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-02
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-06 14:21:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/419863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trilliath/pseuds/trilliath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Admiral Shala'Raan may not be going off to fight the reapers with Tali'Zorah, but she does have an entire planet to re-settle, along with some Geth neighbors to integrate with.</p><p>This story follows Shala'Raan and a Geth Prime as they develop friendship and more during those first few months on Rannoch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sunset

"You are injured, Creator Shala'Raan," it stated, tilting its head.  
The sound of a geth speaking was still extremely jarring to her. She had been astonished aboard the Normandy to hear the one they had called Legion speaking with the commander and Tali'Zorah. And to see the both of them speak to it as though it were just another person.  
They were both something quite special.  
"I see your powers of observation remain intact," she replied, still staring out over the cliff. Despite her admiration for her departed niece and her commander, she couldn't seem to help the defensive reply. Too much history for her to change in a few hours.   
But next time…   
Well there was always room for growth.

The valley was stunning. Just heart-crushingly stunning. There were trees, plants everywhere. Sparse, yes, in the arid climate. But flora nonetheless. The rushing water of the river could be seen at the base of the valley in the distance, free and wild.   
And the way the sun was disappearing over the horizon, _her_ horizon, tied a knot in her throat. She ached to see it in all its glory.

She would not be able to be so reckless as young Tali'Zorah. She would not be able to view the valley without her mask. The injury to her ribs and possibly her internal organs meant she did not have the luxury of an infection. Not yet.

So she stood, arms bowed about her waist, ignoring her pain and drinking in the masked view for a little longer until the sun had completely disappeared behind the rocks.

Shepard and Tali'Zorah had left a while ago. Though she had managed to climb her way up onto this cliff, the return route suddenly looked far more steep and unstable. 

_Now what?_ she asked herself.

The path down led back to her crashed ship. It would hurt, seeing the broken corpse of the Tonbay, but at least its grave would be on Rannoch. Likely a wise place to begin, to help with the recovery of equipment.

When she glanced back, she was surprised to see the glowing lights of the geth prime. It spoke to the power of the vista of Rannoch that she had forgotten its presence behind her. It was staring at her, optics darting and dilating, watching her pained movements as she shifted her weight to ease the ache of her body. 

"I'm going to return to my ship now," she said. Then remembering her intent to start bridging the gap between their peoples, she added, "what will you do?"

"We would like to assist you," it said, dipping its optics.

She shifted her weight again slowly, holding her rib painfully, turning her head up to look fully at its optics.

The feeling of looking up at the huge geth prime was dizzying. She wasn't sure whether it was because of its height, her injury, or the tangled fear and awe and loathing that her people felt towards their ancestors' synthetic progeny.

But she had never been anything but a pragmatic woman. One didn't manage something as complex as the quarian fleet without a bit of platinum in their bones.

"Very well," she said, her vocalizer rasping even more than usual.

In a surprisingly literal enactment of its words, it reached down abruptly, placing disturbingly precise and gentle appendages against her suit. Its digits splayed in nearly inappropriate locations as it found the positions on her hip and thigh where it could lift her gently into the air and cup her against its torso.  
It began its bounding, jarring trot down the steep embankment, somehow holding its arms independent of its motions so that she barely felt the bounce at all.

It was most definitely surreal.   
But it would be best, after all, for an Admiral to be seen immediately interacting with the geth. 

 

"Keelah," she murmured to herself - hopefully none of her crew would decide to open fire to "rescue" her.


	2. New beginnings

Three weeks had passed. The geth prime had not left her. 

It had assisted her by building her a shelter that first night while they waited for transport. It remained by her side as they had gathered what they could from the wreckage and loaded it onto the ship that would take them to the southern continent where they were to begin rebuilding.

Things had changed so abruptly that there was no plan laid out. No one had foreseen the geth and quarians both remaining on Rannoch. For all their ingenuity, and years of planning and dreaming about what they would do if they made their homeworld, they had _never_ thought that far outside the box. Not anyone with authority to draft a real plan anyway.  
Plans were adapted, scrapped, re-drawn altogether. But strangest of all was the fact that she had a geth prime as some sort of personal assistant. Perhaps Consultant on the Geth was more like it. And then again, considering their frequent non-mission conversations, perhaps simply "Companion" was the best term to describe it. 

Their culture was going to have to shift fast. 

And there was so much to do, she was getting so tired, trying to heal from her injuries and still do her duty as an Admiral, pushing herself harder and longer than every subordinate. 

At first she had been wary of the geth's continued presence. Certainly her old crew had been concerned. Some had come to her to argue the point. But the issue wasn't so simple as her comfort. As an Admiral, she had duties that went far into the realm of leading by example.

And having the prime there seemed to make every new difficulty a bit easier. It not only supplemented her physical abilities, but had a unique and insightful perspective on many of the issues she had to evaluate. Its ability to liaise with other geth was a boon as well during her meetings with the captains and various mobile platforms.

Certainly there were extra troubles with the geth as allies. But there were also innovations, unexpected solutions. And, of course, their inexhaustible support in the physical undertaking of breaking down ships into homes and medical bays, the sheer magnitude which gave her a slight headache just thinking about it.

But the geth helped. Keelah they helped so much. She already had a home to call her own, and not some remixed bits and pieces of old cabins, but a home built by the geth, complete with very high ceilings and doors tall enough to admit even the Prime with no trouble. A home befitting an admiral, some had said happily when it had been allocated to her. It felt strange to have not just a bedroom to herself, but a whole home, complete with living room, kitchen, and even a work-room for various tech projects and a desk for her to work at.

Things had actually been going along smoothly, more or less. Homes were made, farms were started. Those who had trouble adjusting to the geth presence were permitted to start individual homesteads far away from the major settlement. It kept them from forming their own cliques, but allowed them the freedom they deserved.

But nothing stayed simple for long.   
In just a few short weeks, the geth had developed and then revealed their innovative idea to interface with quarian suits, to speed their physical adaptation to their homeworld. 

It was a precious gift.

And yet she had been so impulsively resistant to the idea - despite the fact that she had encouraged the others to take part. She wasn't sure why. She had to be the one to be demonstrably open to the geth. Zal'Koris was already known as a geth sympathizer, so his actions only went so far. Han'Gerrel had done as much as he could by allowing the ending of the war. He now was with the rest of the heavy fleet on their way to prepare for war with the Reapers.   
She tried not to think of the war, or her worry for Tali'Zorah. It made all her efforts feel futile.

But considering all of that, it was up to her to be the voice of unity, to hold things together.  
As usual.  
It was hard. But it was also hard to be bitter about something she'd spent many years doing. Or so many years dreaming about. Still, she hesitated at interfacing her suit.

She'd had the excuse of her injury to ward off suspicion, and she'd been left to lag behind in peace. She was content - until her crew, her adopted family from the Tonbay, started taking off their masks.

Not for very long, and not all of them. But she had walked around in astonished awe, catching first glimpses of people she had known most of her life. Her bubbly comm officer's markings were turquoise, and one of the Tonbay's pilots had eyes like the first glimmering ray of Rannoch's sunrise.   
When her former first officer Fal'Zirel had sought her out specifically to show her his face, she had returned to her quarters and wept inside her suit for a long while. He had told her how grateful to her he was that he could remove his mask, and that spending the time to show her his face first was the only way he could think to thank her. 

The prime had found her thus, bowed over and weeping, in relief, in regret, in awe of the beauty of her people. In disappointment at her own cowardice.

"Are you unwell, Creator Raan?" it had asked, looming over her as usual. It had reached out its appendage hesitantly, touching a digit to her shoulder.

She had straightened to look up at it, blinking away her tears so she could see. On her recommendation, it had adapted its light displays on its optics and various systems to display a blue-green light instead of the antagonistic red. The red battle-sheen of its plates had been turned back to a silver color. It was much less jarring that way. Familiar in an odd sense.

"No, I am well, prime. Thank you for asking," she said, voice low and soft from her tears.

"You were," it hesitated, as though searching for the word, "crying." 

Over the weeks they had spent together she had learned that though it often spoke in statements, it was frequently in the process of gathering new data about the behavior of the organics. She had challenged herself to overcome her discomfort by spending the time to explain to it what she could. She might not have been ready to let them into her suit, but no one could ever accuse Admiral Shala'Raan of not doing her part.

"Ah. Yes. I had an emotional reaction to something a friend of mine did. Sometimes weeping makes one feel better," she replied.

"Fal'Zirel," it stated.

"Yes," she responded. She gazed at it with a tilt of her head - she hadn't noticed its presence then. Though she had certainly been distracted at the time.

"We have observed that the revelation of one's face is a significant action," the geth prime had stated, turning its optics on her quizzically. 

"Yes," she explained. "In the flotilla, having the chance to see another's face is extremely rare. Only those who have chosen each other as mates, or occasionally dear friends, will take the risk to sync suits. Fal'Zirel did me a great honor by his actions." 

"You were saddened by this action," it said, drawing its head down closer to her.  
She stood quickly, shaking her head. "No. I was crying because it caused me to feel joy. And," she added, reminding herself that honesty was terribly important when speaking to the Prime, "I did also feel lonely, and saddened that I am still staying in my suit when others are free."

It gazed at her for a long moment, then settled its head plates back down.

It had turned from her then in its traditional abrupt fashion, moving away to continue building her home. Then it had paused, turning to look down over its broad shoulder at her. 

 

"One day, we would like to see your face, Creator Raan," the prime had said.


	3. Questions

By the time the second month rolled around, there was significant evidence that simple was long gone - if it had ever truly been there. Reports had been coming in from all three major settlements that several mobile platforms working closely with certain quarians had begun actualizing as individuals. Some had started requesting to be given names, or singular pronouns. There had been a quiet, intense closed-door admirals and captains meeting on the subject soon after the reports started occurring.

It was unclear what this development would mean long term, but it seemed to be giving them something more in common. The decision to support any geth in an endeavor towards individuality had been agreed upon. Equally unanimous, but more difficult, had been the decision to open the next such meeting to a few select individuated primes. Her Prime had accompanied her, though its position was far from clear.  
Nothing much had been decided, but the individuated platforms had suggested that considerations about law and personhood ought to be included in the ever-ongoing civilization building that was under the admiralty's purview. 

No, simple was never even close to an adjective that could describe her life.

Raan wondered about _her_ prime. Whether it was developing an individual personality.  
She thought perhaps… but she had spent little time with any other geth, she had… how had the geth put it? No data available.

But then there were those words that echoed in her mind.   
_One day, we would like to see your face, Creator Raan_

One day.  
Yes perhaps.

And if there were any better way to encourage an individual personality in an AI of networked intelligence than spending time with it, by answering its questions, then she didn't know.  
Because while she couldn't yet bring herself to interface with the geth, to bring them into her suit, she could do that much.

That was why she now sat with the Prime in her living room, as they often did at the end of the day. It was softly lit through the large bay window with the rays of the setting sun. It was peaceful, beautiful. They sat across from each other on low bench seats.   
Sometimes they spoke about her perceptions of the quarian and geth progress on Rannoch. Sometimes they spoke of the meaning of life. Today it had been asking her questions about quarians and their physical capabilities. 

It had taken her smaller hand in its own and had splayed her three fingers flat. Its own three digits were spread beneath hers in perfect stillness. It touched her palm with its free hand, tracing the ridges and muscles through her suit. 

It was strange to think that she had not been touched for so long, save the occasional hug from Tali, or shaking of hands, a touch on the shoulder. The persistent stroking of its digits was a sensory experience that deviated from those normal activities. It had strange feelings welling up in her chest, feelings of suddenly being real again, if that made any semblance of sense.

"It is an efficient design," it pronounced after a long moment.

That managed to surprise a low laugh out of her. At the sound it tipped its primary optics up with alacrity to study her movements. It did that every time she laughed, as though the elusive concept of humor was one of great interest. She supposed if she were a machine, she would find humor to be an intriguing concept too.

"The product of evolution," she replied, gesturing idly with her other hand. But the motion had her considering it herself, splaying and flexing the digits. They both gazed at her gestures, then she gazed over at the Prime. She cocked her head. 

" _You_ , on the other hand, are indeed the product of efficient design," she said, pointing with one delicate fingertip. "As well as the influence of quarian evolution," she added with a thoughtful tenor to her voice. "Human constructs, after all, have five digits. I suppose we are all limited by our own parameters."

Its head arced down to gaze at its own hand, spread beneath hers, nearly a mirror image, despite the size difference. 

She had begun to grow used to his size, more than a third again her height. It had all the grace of her people, just in a strangely precise manner. Its steps were always measured, and when it moved quickly (though it rarely had need to anymore), its steps could be lithe. It never ran into things with its plated networking towers, despite the fact that they jutted up squarely from its back.

"You do not behave like the others," Prime said, broaching a new subject. It extended its arm up under hers, drawing her arm straight along its own, encircling the limb with long fingers. Slowly it bent the joint of her elbow, watching the way her arm moved.

"In what way?" she asked patiently.

"You did not have a companion when you arrived, and you have not selected one like many of the others have since arriving," it stated.

It was true. Their homeworld had inspired many people to confess their feeling for each other, to solidify relationships in the hopes of starting families now that it would soon be less dangerous to do so. Others had taken up companionship, sharing homes with best friends, creating small families in the void of the greater social structures of their now-defunct ships, merging into amorphous communities. Social contact was more or less a necessity for their people. It was rare for any quarian to be alone. As an Admiral, she was rarely alone, and the Prime was almost always at her side.   
She tipped her chin up to look at it.

"Are you not my companion?" she asked. Her question was in part motivated by an Admiral's desire to see the bridges between their peoples strengthened, but in part genuine warmth for the individual who had perhaps been developing its sentience by her side.

Its head plates flared at her response, optics dilating wildly. It even made a tiny digital chirrup she had come to recognize as the sound that was made when its consensus reached a particularly surprising or difficult conclusion. It studied her for a moment.

"Affirmative," it stated then, resuming its examination of her arm.

She felt a faint sense of hesitation, wondering if she had said something that meant more than she had noticed. It seemed to have been a strong reaction. But then, who was she to say that it wasn't exactly the sort of epiphany that led to self-actualized sentience?

"The development of homestead units is developing faster than predicted. Our calculations were flawed," it stated, apparently shifting topics once again.

"In what way?" she asked again. It was a question she was becoming quite accustomed to.

"The Creator units are more productive than estimates of their capabilities would have allowed," it said, moving its huge hands up her arm to her shoulder joint, moving her arm slightly as it examined the motion. "They appear to be more capable than their physical specifications would imply. However, based upon our observations of you, Creator Raan, we do not think this is the appropriate conclusion. We posit that we are missing an element in our equations."

She considered the point for a long moment, gazing out at the glowing ember of the sunset.   
"Perhaps you should consider their spirit," she said, gazing up at it. It too wore the glowing colors of the red-gold hazy light, the paint of their homeworld, reflecting in muted tones from its plates.

"Elaborate," it requested, large hand engulfing her shoulder joint as it leaned closer to move it. It slid its other hand behind her shoulder so that it could press slightly forward and back on the joint. It almost felt like a strange massage.

"The emotional and mental component of their homecoming likely has a synergistic effect on their abilities," she said, a note of pride coming into her voice. "It is common for organics to exceed expected abilities when something is import-,"

She jerked back sharply, cutting herself off. It froze, turning its optics on her. Its hand had moved down and closed over her breast. 

"Have we done something wrong?" it asked, head plates fluttering briefly.

She was breathing a little unevenly as she tried to choose the words that would do both her personal self and Admiral self justice. Her heart was pounding. No, simple had never even been in the room. She took a slow breath, trying to calm herself.

"For many organics, there are some place on their bodies that are private. Permission must be given before another can touch them there," she explained, letting her hands fall back to her lap from the defensive position they had automatically risen to. She felt no threat, after all. Startlement, yes.   
Curiosity… yes.  
But threat? No.

"Private? In what way?" the Prime asked.

And that surprised her into a low chuckle; the sound of her own question being posed back at her. She smiled to herself shaking her head slightly as she considered her answer to the question. At least as an Admiral she was used to her words having important implications. Perhaps not so vast as the future and understanding between two cultures. She still didn't know what ramifications her words to _this_ Prime might have for geth everywhere on Rannoch. 

Either way, it was important she do her best. So she thought. The Prime had never seemed to mind that she sometimes took a long time to answer. It didn't always reach consensus immediately either. She folded her hands. She schooled her voice towards matter-of-fact. 

"For one thing, sexual organs are often considered private, particularly when touched in the context of experiencing sexual pleasure. It is customary that only mates or close friends are allowed to see or to touch those places on one's body. Even then, it is customary to share those body parts only in private, when others are not near," she explained, gesturing at the empty room.

"For what reason?" it asked.

She laughed at that. "Because in most cultures, sexual behaviors are private, only pertaining to those who are involved. Perhaps because it is something that is usually an expression of shared deep emotions or desires that do not extend to others outside those engaging in the sexual behavior. Thus such acts are usually only shared between mates, lovers, sometimes friends."

It gazed at her, listening intently. Nearly all her reactive tension had gone. 

"Usually a sexual behavior is agreed upon verbally before any touching begins in new relationships. Established couples do not always require words. However, if one is uncertain about the reception, a verbal overture is wise, for any form of touching," she explained, hoping to prevent anyone else from receiving an unexpected groping. Smaller things had set off fights and even wars.

It paused, as though gathering data. Perhaps it was. For all she knew, it was conversing with other geth about the topic even as they spoke. 

"Then this part of your body is private?" it asked, gesturing fractionally with the fingertips that hovered over her breast.

"Traditionally yes, as it is a sexual organ, the breast," she said.   
Its head drooped, and somehow it managed to look dejected.

She took a deep breath before continuing, knowing that it was precarious territory on which she tread. "However, as you are my friend, and we are here together learning about the quarian people in private, you may continue your exploration. For now."  
It was a simple enough, logical enough reason. But she'd be a liar if she said her motives were truly that simple. She didn't really understand them herself, but a part of her, a large part of her wanted the Prime to continue exploring her body, and definitely not just because it might support their inter-cultural relations.

*  
Its optics looked down to her breast, quickly up at her helmet, then back down at her breast again. It reached its hand out again, dwarfing her curve in its grasp.

Excitement blossomed in her chest. She bit back a low sound as it kneaded her, and she could feel her nipple tighten inside her suit, sending another wash of sensation into her body. No one had touched her there in a long time, she wasn't really surprised at her body's overzealous reaction. She tried to calm herself nonetheless.

Its second hand slid down to touch her other breast, and her ribcage was practically hidden from view beneath its large hands. Slowly the hands moved down her ribs, encircling her body in much the same way it had her arm, measuring her with its fingertips. 

"I have a question about the geth. About you," she began.

It looked up at her - well, it was still looking down, being so much larger than she was, but it shifted its regard from her ribcage to her face.

"We will answer to the best of our ability," it replied, smoothing large thumbs down the center column of her body.

"Do you communicate with other geth at will?" she asked, glancing up at the tall server towers that jutted up into the air above them.

"One of the primary functions of this mobile platform is to communicate and command other units. However, there is less need to do so on Rannoch."

"Are you… are all the networked intelligences in this mobile platform… do they remain here?"

"There is often some exchange between mobile platforms as different functions are required. Many of the mobile platforms on Rannoch exchange geth at an average rate of 5.42%" 

The idea of taking 5% of yourself and exchanging it when you met someone. So strange. Would it be like disconnecting your hand and taking someone else's in exchange? How odd that would feel. Or perhaps your hand would be excited to try another body on for size, and you would get the new experience of feeling through someone else's experience. 

"What would be the rate during battle? Or during missions before the end of the war?" she asked.

Its hands stroked lower over the curve of her waist and the flare of her hips. She tried to ignore the sensation of heat between her thighs as its fingers dipped to follow the crease of her leg. 

"During battle circumstances change rapidly. However, the interquartile rate range for all geth prime units is between 7% and 25%, with many outliers. During normal operations the interquartile range is 15.25% to 89%."

No wonder they were not individuals - it would be so difficult to maintain a sense of self when your self was constantly changing.   
"Is this what makes it so you do not form individual personalities?"

"Yes."

But then what of the mobile platforms which had been showing individuation?  
"How have the primes we met with managed this feat?" she asked. "How are they becoming individuals?"

"They have reduced their exchange rates significantly. This maintains platform cohesion."   
It paused, then added, "Our current rate of exchange is at an average of 0.57% per encounter."

She stared at it a long moment. "Then, you wish to develop an individual identity?" she asked quietly.

"Yes," it replied with little hesitation.

That sent a wave of complex feelings through her. She would have to consider those emotions carefully. Later, when the Prime wasn't sliding its hands down the inside of her thighs to encircle her knee. It lifted her leg slightly taking the sweeping curve of her calf into its hands. It examined the joint in silence for a long moment. Then it tilted its optics back up at her.

"Creator Raan, why have you not begun the immuno-boosting regimen the geth have developed?" it asked.

There was an open invitation to any quarian to interface with any geth. But _her_ prime had also offered to upload some of itselves into her suit weeks ago. She had declined.   
She did not answer for a long moment. "I am not certain," she said finally. "Perhaps I was a bit hesitant after my injury."

"Your injury has healed well." The prime said, touching a hand to her side.

She looked up at it, hands weaving tightly together. She sighed slowly. "Indeed it has."  
And she was no longer so concerned about the geth, or the invasive concept of sharing her suit with some. In fact, it was growing harder to remember what her life had been like without them. 

"Perhaps I ought to begin the immuno-bombing after all," she said eventually.

"Would you like us to assist you with that?" it asked, settling her foot back down to the floor and gazing at her intently.

"Yes," she said after a long moment. With a gesture toward the prime she added, "I think I would prefer it if some of you were the ones to do it." 

Without preamble it moved its hand to her omni-tool, and the other to the suit computer's primary jack. It extended a connector to interface with her suit computer and another to her omni-tool. She did not feel anything, but her HUD flickered rapidly with long strings of code.   
She felt the suit click as it reset itself, never a comfortable feeling for a quarian. Rapidly it clicked again, coming back to life.

"We are now part of your suit," it said, dropping its hands.

Just like that?

"Thank you," she said quietly. She looked up at the Prime, feeling a sense of strange relief. She wasn't sure whether it was the rush of finally getting it over with, or that it had been _her_ Prime to do it after all. Either way… she was glad.

"It is our pleasure," came the reply.

And not for the first time, she had to wonder just exactly what the word _our_ encompassed.


	4. The Inevitable Dash of Psychology

The idyllic peace only lasted so long. One morning as she approached the command center in the golden rays of Rannoch's dawning sun, she heard raised quarian voices. It was not something she ever liked to hear, though the argument at the boards in the flotilla had often been heated. She quickened her pace to draw near, her Prime following close behind her. She didn't know if it noticed her change in pace, but she didn't stop to explain.

Two captains were arguing in front of the command center doors. Administrator Hal'Raala was standing between them and the doors, trying to calm them down with little success. And no wonder, considering the two captains in question. Both were the sort to speak their mind, loudly, and with little degree of flexibility.

"I refuse to be _forced_ to live with _them_ ," Captain Tey'Ison was shouting, vocalizer pitching his voice discordantly in anger.

"Nobody's telling you to add a prime to your household, Tey'Ison," captain Jev'Orlii argued back, her voice sharp and sarcastic, pure-toned without the barrier of her mask and vocalizer.   
With her unmasked face it was viscerally clear which of them had been in favor of integration and which had not.

"But they are asking me to accept those _things_ as neighbors. It's preposterous," he argued, waving a hand at the administrator.

Raan strode forward quickly. Crowds had begun to gather, ringing the two captains. Some of them were geth, most were quarian. Still, as an admiral she commanded enough of a presence to open a path around her Prime and herself.

"Enough," Raan said, voice going raspy as she raised it over the arguing voices of her fellows. She put the titanium threads of strength into her voice, her admiral's voice.

Silence fell, and she waited a moment before speaking softly.

"Is this the sort of example captains should be setting? Arguing in the streets like children?" she said, voice going weary and low.

Jev'Orlii crossed her arms in a manner that looked a bit petulant, and Tey'Ison folded his hands behind the small of his back, dipping his head as he said, "Admiral. Apologies. I came to speak with you, but Hal'Raala wouldn't let me in."

"Because she wasn't _here_ ," Hal said caustically, gesturing at Raan. The administrator was clearly at the end of her tether. Raan sent her an appreciative nod.

"I see that now," Tey'Ison said, voice growing tight with embarrassed acknowledgment.

"What is going on then?" Raan asked. "What did you wish to see me about so intently."

"The new housing plans. It has geth homesteads allocated in between quarian homesteads," the captain said, tapping at his omni-tool to display a holographic projection between them.

The display showed the circular city plan that had just been ratified with the board and planning committee. It radiated in long triangular sections out from the city center buildings and command center, little neighborhood wedges with wide spaces for avenues between them. They planned for rapid growth. It was a rather beautiful design in her opinion, adapted from years of hope and dreams of the quarian people, blended with the ingenuity of the geth.

And each little neighborhood had allocations of equal size for geth and quarian homes. They were all interspersed.  
"I don't understand why we can't have quarians living next to quarians. Why don't we have a say in this? Why do they get your personal attention?" Tey'Ison demanded, pointing at her Prime angrily.

It was a very carefully selected design. She glanced back out at the crowd, then briefly at her Prime. And yet she couldn't muster any animosity towards Tey'Ison's upset. No one really knew how to behave around each other, what to do with their cohabitants.   
The quarians had no history of such things, but the humans did. Upon Commander Shepard's recommendation she had investigated some of the history of Earth's desegregation movements, read the research on the topic. The disturbing facts of their historical divides along "race" boundaries could at least be put to use helping others make the same mistakes, the Commander had told her. 

"I came to show you my alternative plan," he continued, tapping at his omni-tool again, the highlighted checkerboard of houses fading and then relighting in smooth unbroken swaths. It would _feel_ right to most. Staying within familiar groups. There was a murmur among the growing crowd. Some in favor, by the cadence of their voices.

But the concept of separate-but-equal, or clustered neighborhoods was one that had been proven time and time again, by civil engineers and psychologists alike, to be the worst possible design. 

"We should be free to choose where we live," Tey'Ison said.

"I'm not going to move my entire crew just because you don't like your new neighbors, Tey. We're not moving and that's final!" Jev'Orlii snapped, pointing to a section of the city which had already been partially built, where dozens of her families, her former crew, were now ensconced in a checkerboard pattern of various prefabricated or geth-built homes. 

"You both know it doesn't work that way, never has. The flotilla wouldn't have lasted long if we hadn't worked together on these things," Hal'Raala interjected. 

Raan just shook her head. "All of you have valid perspectives."   
But there were times when an Admiral knew best, when she had done the research that the others had not. When she had lived with a geth Prime for months and tested her perspective first-hand. Being an admiral never meant that she could just make the decisions, just have power. It meant that she had a duty to make those decisions with depth and effort. And this time, she was certain she was right, at least about this one thing.

She reached out and touched Tey'Ison's shoulder briefly. "But if history has taught us anything, it is that we must always be open to new perspectives, to new ways of living. The quarian people would never have survived our exile if we refused to adapt."

"There will be no segregation. There will be no destruction of the developing bonds of understanding and friendship between our people," she said, gazing at her prime. No. She would fight for her friendship, as confusing and tangled as it might be. She looked out at the crowd of her people, geth interspersed among quarians. She would fight for all of them, for a chance to be more than fear and reactance.

"Now please, I'm sure we all have more productive things to do than stand here in the street," she admonished firmly and waited expectantly until both captains bowed respectfully and went their separate ways.

Hal'Raala sighed and turned, heading inside. Raan followed, and the younger quarian turned to her. "I don't know how you do it, Admiral," she said, shaking her head as she turned away towards her office.

Raan paused, looking after her with a wry smile inside her helmet. Neither did she. Not really. She was just making it up as she went along like the rest of them. Oh, she worked hard it was true, made sure she had as much experience and knowledge as possible.  
But when it came down to it? She just had to trust herself to make the right decision and hope for the best.

The Prime followed her, as always, into her office. But this time it seemed particularly present. Perhaps it was the way its head kept dipping down to line its optics up with her more fully, or the way it was just a few inches closer than other days as she palmed the door control.

She paused as they entered her office, turning to look up at it in the dim gray lighting. She laid a hand on its broad arm, gazing at the brighter lights of its optics.   
"I'm sorry Tey'Ison said those things."

It gazed at her, tilting its head.  
"They have caused you distress," the Prime said.

"Some," she admitted, sighing. She walked over to the shade control on the window and tapped it so that the bright morning rays could flood the room. She folded her arms and turned. The Prime had followed her and was in close proximity still.

"But I was more concerned that it might cause _you_ distress," she said, looking up at it. "I do not wish you harmed in any way."

Its head plates flared a little and it tilted its head back. Abruptly it crouched down so that its head was closer to her height. Its optics studied her for a long moment, then it reached out a tentative hand to set on her arm.

"No, Shala'Raan. We were not harmed. Our consensus was not disturbed," it said. 

"Your consensus?" she said quietly, tilting her head. 

"The consensus we hold about the value of the Creators."

She didn't realize the geth had such a consensus. It was an interesting concept, perhaps one she ought to be more concerned about as an Admiral. What exactly did such a consensus entail? Could the entirety of the geth change their consensus one day and instantaneously decide the quarians were a threat? Or perhaps she was reading too much into it. Perhaps it was simply an analogue for 'opinion'. But something else it had said tugged at her.

"We?" she asked hesitantly, wanting to understand which geth the Prime mobile platform spoke for.

It paused for a long moment, optics dilating, then constricting. Then it tipped its head down as though removing the stimulus of her reaction from its gaze as though it needed to concentrate all its resources on its answer. The Prime never took quite so long on a response.   
She waited, patiently for the response, but it felt like something important was about to happen. She gazed at the hand it still had on her arm. 

The Prime turned its optics back on her. "The geth have not altered their consensus. Nor have... _I_ ," it said eventually. 

Ah. She felt a spreading rush of feeling in her chest at the use of the singular pronoun. Her throat was tight with feelings so complicated she had no idea what to do with. Others, simple, like awe and joy. She nodded once… twice. Then she placed her hand over the Prime's larger one on her arm. 

 

"I am very glad to hear it."


	5. Revelations

The next day she was surprised to realize that Prime had not been near her side all day. How swiftly she had gotten used to its presence, she mused. Twice during her meeting with Captain Jev'Orlii she had turned to ask its opinion, only to realize it was not there.

By the afternoon she was starting to get worried. Though she had another meeting with Hal'Raala, she begged a postponement from her over-worked administrator. Even still, she had needed to remain through one more meeting. The inescapable fact was that in her position, decisions with important timing needed to be made before she could attend to her personal worries.

She gazed out her window briefly. The streets were normal, people - quarian and geth alike, were wandering about their daily tasks. Nothing untoward had interfered with their ordinary actions, no ghastly scene awaited curious onlookers. That loosened the knot in her belly a little, but it still didn't tell her where her prime was. She reminded herself sternly to finish the task at hand, but her mind wandered again a few moments later.

She thought of the last place she had seen it. In light of the striking revelation of its step towards individuality, they had spent the evening in discussion. They had spoken for a while about the nature of sentience, about being an individual. It had not used the singular pronoun frequently to refer to itselves… but it had slipped into its responses more than once. It was not an instantaneous process, it seemed, but a gradual cohesion. 

Sometimes she was staggered by her life; build an entire civilization during the day, have complex discussions of the philosophy of mind by night. Become friends with a machine. Watch sentience develop.

Then she had slept. She tried to remember if she had spoken to it in the morning, but she couldn't recall. They did not always speak in the morning, depending on how each was occupied, or inclined. 

She sometimes would go for a walk by herself in the mornings, treating herself to the beauty of the sun rising over the plains while her Prime was busy working on some task on their home or at the terminal it had chosen in the workroom. 

She had done so that morning. She often did on days when the slight headache and stuffiness or fever that accompanied the immuno-bombing regime made her frustrated. The beautiful vistas of their homeworld did much to quiet the minor aches and pains with renewed feelings of purpose and excitement for the days when she would view it all unmasked. She had yet to remove her mask even once, the weight of responsibility keeping her on the conservative path, health-wise. 

Yes, she had viewed the early morning sun, walked the outskirts of her city, then gone straight to the command center. Not an unusual pattern. Usually the Prime showed up at the command center quite soon after she did, ready to assist her in her efforts towards maintaining the colony, or sometimes to report on the work it had completed during the night.

She made her way home quickly after she extricated herself from the meeting to search for it.   
"Prime?" she called into her home as she entered the front door. Silence greeted her. The Prime was not in the living room or kitchen, but there were also no signs anything was amiss. 

When she made her way into the workroom, she sighed in relief, setting a calming palm to the knot of tension in her belly. She could see the broad silvery back and server towers near one of the workbenches as she entered the room.

 _On_ one of the workbenches, she realized, her anxiety levels rising again quickly. Had it been damaged? She moved quickly across the gap, eyes darting over the geth for any signs of damage.

"Prime," she called, vocalizer pitching her dual-tones higher than usual, "Are you injured?" she asked, drawing near. 

Near enough to see everything.  
Before it could answer she stopped dead in her tracks, as though she had smacked into an invisible wall, freezing her in place She was hallucinating, she told herself. The geth in her suit must have overestimated her abilities and she was having fever hallucinations. 

The prime was straddling the workbench, metallic body gleaming in the lights which hung overhead. At its pelvis was a new shape, a huge phallus jutting out from between its legs. Tools were laid out on the bench, as well as discarded pieces of armored plates. 

Clearly a hallucination, though she didn't dwell on which part of her psyche might be responsible for creating images of the like before her.

"No," it replied, oblivious to her reaction. "We are improving the design of our mobile platform," it said, continuing the use of the implement in its hand, adjusting one of the sensors embedded in the member cradled in its other palm.

"We have been studying the anatomy of the Creators, Shala'Raan," it said, passing its optics over her before returning its inspection to the construction at its pelvis. It sounded… pleased.

She had no words. There was nothing she could think of in her considerable life's experience that had prepared her for dealing with an AI in a mobile platform developing sexual organs.   
"I see that," she stated finally.

It rose then, swinging one long curved leg over the workbench and turned to face her. It stepped forward a pace and let its hands float slightly to the side as though presenting itself to her. 

She couldn't help her hands flitting up to her head in dismay. Because of its height, it's phallus was nearly level with her chest, jutting out from its pelvis. It was made primarily of the same material as the sinewy cables that connected many of the geth's systems. It had ridges and bumps that were perhaps designed to be haptic sensors. In points it glowed faintly from the tiny eezo cores any mobile geth used to run its various components. The head was a polished curved piece of material that did indeed look remarkably like that of a quarian male's erect penis - albeit much larger.

"Do you assess that it would be adequate?" it asked, reaching down to touch the glowing member. It flexed slightly in its hands as it palpated the phallus. She couldn't breathe. She called upon every ounce of composure she'd practiced in the span of her life and took a breath, forcing her hands back down from her head and into a more calm position folded at her waist. 

"Adequate for what purpose?" she asked, surprising herself since she was sure she really didn't actually want to know the answer to that question. _Liar_ her mind told her. Her body trembled in agreement. Her legs, having been locked stiff, felt suddenly shaky, and the throbbing feeling of her clitorises swelling against each other was one she was trying desperately to ignore.

It hesitated, arms falling to its side. It's head plates flexed wide, then resettled slowly.  
"For you," it stated finally.

"It is so large," she heard herself say faintly, dual-tones of her vocalizer discordantly pitched.

It turned its optics down towards its pelvis, considering. It resumed its manual assessment, encircling it with its digits as though measuring its considerable girth.  
"It is proportional to my size, based on our knowledge of quarian males. Also, our research has suggested that there are numerous references in sexual materials and discussions which imply that larger size is desirable."

She was completely flabbergasted. Lightheaded. She couldn't take her eyes off the phallus. Nor could she stop the flood of tingling sensation that rushed through her body. Part of her obviously thought it was quite adequate indeed.  
"It is a remarkable facsimile," she managed.

As though satisfied with that pronouncement, it - or perhaps more accurately, _he_ turned away and resumed its position at the tech station, straddling it once more. It cradled the phallus again and lifted another tool.

Raan, for lack of any coherent direction or thought, turned and retreated.


	6. Stimulation

For weeks she was unable to keep the image from her mind. Frequently her body betrayed her with taut heat spiraling through her core, a hardening of her nipples every time she saw Prime and its newly configured cod-piece. 

The difference in its plating was subtle, and she desperately hoped no one else has noticed the fact that where there was once a long solid plate there were instead a few more smaller ones with sinuous cables peeking through their gaps. Not for the first time she was extremely thankful that Daro'Xen was nowhere near. That woman's eye for detail would surely never have missed the altered codpiece or Raan's increased glances in that direction.

And though she struggled to control her behavior, Raan knew she was not exactly the same in her manner. How could she be?  
The way it was always near her, looking at her, had her skin tingling like an excited girl with her first lustful crush. Some days she had trouble walking around the settlement with him looming over her shoulder for fear she would moan aloud at the friction at her center where her clitorises swelled rebelliously in arousal.

And then there was the way that her Prime had started to adapt the ubiquitous casual touching that it observed between quarians. A hand touching a shoulder here, a nudge to an elbow for attention.

It got so bad some days that she would send the prime out on unimportant fetch quests to the other side of camp. Then, in her moment of stolen privacy she would climb onto her bed, turn her nervestim program up to maximum, and relieve her tension in a shaking, moaning orgasm, trying to pretend that she was not thinking about the geth when she did it. 

It was just stress relief, she would tell herself. The responsibilities of her life put a great deal of tension into her body. She told herself that she was not sexually attracted to a machine that didn't even have a name. The Prime's questions and developing of sexual organs and powerful presence merely reminded her that sexual release was healthy and normal. An admiral, alone and with such responsibilities and no mate sometimes forgot that she was also a woman.

And it was not as though she had time to think about such things, not with all her duties. And even if she were… it was probably just because it was her natural curiosity and efforts to understand the developing meeting of culture between the quarians and the geth.  
Yes, of course.

But Shala'Raan had never been anything but a practical woman, and she was fairly certain that all those things she told herself were about as legitimate as a black-market quad of krogan testicles.

 

 

One morning as she was just finishing ingesting her breakfast, Prime came to sit across from her. She appreciated the feeling of fondness she experienced as it neared, and tried to ignore the more tingly sensations her body tried to add.

It was a day of scheduled break for her. As an effective administrator she knew that even the workaholics like herself needed a day now and again to spend at the homestead. She had spent the morning watching the sun rise, dawdling over her breakfast. The huge window of her living quarters was an excellent feature. It faced to the rising sun, letting her view it in all its golden pink glory.

"Raan," it began, looking at her intently.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I would like your help interpreting some data," it said.

"Of course," she said, setting her dish aside and turning to face the prime more fully.

"We have observed a significant increase in the frequency of your use of suit program 1178-Nervestim-Deluxe." Delivery deadpan as usual, it gazed at her silently, hands folded in what was likely a mimicry of her habitual pose. For a moment, the position distracted her with a curious thought about how much of one's mannerisms a geth might adopt. Then her brain tracked over the words it had spoken. Ran over them again.

She stared at it, thinking she must have misheard. Not that it wasn't... true. She was masturbating almost daily with the help of her suit. But she must have misunderstood, she decided.  
"What?" she stammered eventually, clearing her throat. 

"We were not certain how to interpret this data. Initially, we posited that your accelerating use of program 1178 represents an increased need for sexual release. However, you have not made or received any amorous advances toward other quarians."

No, an Admiral's duty was to remain aloof during times of change. She had not even considered pursuing anything new with a subordinate, despite the occasional pang of loneliness experienced at the sight of other new happy couples. 

"We considered the possibility that this is just a natural and unprompted increase in sexual need, or a response to environmental factors. However," it paused, head plates fluttering slightly, "the timing of this increased usage coincides with your awareness of our modifications to my mobile platform. We considered the possibility that your awareness was the cause," it said.  
"Including that time-point in our statistical models of your behavior reduces error estimates and increases the effect size calculated for the use of program 1178 correlated with amount of time spent making visual inspection of our platform. It is statistically significant, at p = 0.00029, suggesting that the two are related." 

Then hesitated again before saying, "yet you have not made any advance toward me either. We considered the possibility that it was a spurious correlation, however we were unable to detect any possible mediating variables." 

"What?" she said faintly, repeating herself.

"That led us to another possibility. Perhaps you did not understand our intent behind the modifications of our mobile platform."

She was silent a long moment. It was true that the Prime was not the only one who had entertained a few competing theories about the other's behavior.  
"Perhaps not," she managed eventually.

"I had hoped that you would wish to take part in sexual behavior with us," it said.

Ah. So that part of the back of her mind that had suspected as much had been correct after all. She did not fail to notice the surge of pleasant emotion that ran through her at the thought, nor the steely thread of responsibility's warning. 

The questions about quarian behavior, the intimate exploration of her body. The development of sexual apparatus… it had not been general. It had been _specific_. But out of convenience - happenstance? Or something else?  
"Why?" she asked.

"When we spoke to you about your lack of quarian companionship you spoke to say that _we_ were your companion. We hold a unanimous consensus that we wish to be your companion. From our observations and discussions with you we are aware that many companions serve a sexual function for each other. And an emotional function."

"You want to be my lover?" she asked, though she already knew the answer. Her body _ached_ at the thought.

"Yes," it said, dipping its head briefly as its head plates lifted slightly. Its optics remained trained on her face. 

She was silent a long moment as she tried to grasp at the fleeting edges of her thoughts and emotions. There was far too much rolling through her mind. She couldn't seem to catch any purchase. Any quarian would be hurt and feeling rejected by her delay, but the Prime understood the complexity of consensus, the effort it could take for her to reconcile her many perspectives as a woman, as a quarian, as an admiral, and more.  
"When? Now?" she asked, body tingling at the thought. 

It's head plates flared, hands drifting apart in surprise.  
"Today is a day of scheduled rest." 

She laughed, low and soft. "People often use their days of rest for sexual exertions," still engaging in her habitual education of the Prime despite the chaos that worked in her mind. 

It was not a decision she could make simply on the basis of her body's inclination. There were many things she needed to consider, not the least of which being the possible ramifications if they were discovered.  
"I… will need some time to... I need to think," she murmured, standing abruptly. 

It gazed up at her, silent. "You will desire a unanimous consensus," it said. She found she did not disagree. 

She started to walk away, but then paused. "Prime. Your observed correlation is... not spurious," she said, confirming the Prime's original question before she turned and walked out the front door into the rays of the rising sun. 


	7. Contemplation

She sat for a long time on the edge of a low cliff face which overlooked a small creek, watching the sun inch up the sky. She could feel the warmth of it, beaming down over the valley, but her suit kept her temperature at a comfortable level.   
Earlier Shala'Raan had walked the streets of their settlement for a while. When the bustling presence of her people had grown too overwhelming when intermeshed with her tangled thoughts, she had taken a longer path away from the town towards the untamed edges of the landscape. 

So here she was, watching the trail of water ripple through the rocky banks.  
Though the silhouette of the settlement could be seen if she'd chosen to look back towards it, she was glad to be finally and truly alone with her thoughts for the first time in a long time. It wasn't something she often sought - she was a quarian after all. They were not, on the whole, loners.

A day of rest. Well, that was certainly out of the question now, wasn't it? Her mind worked just as hard over this new question as it had over the numerous decisions she'd made on Rannoch. Though it was much more personal, this particular decision hardly had any lesser impact than the others made these past months. She was not just a woman. The prime was not just a sentient individual. In a way, they were both avatars of vast groups of beings. Their choices were not theirs alone. They were not inconsequential.

The longer she sat there, sifting little bits of dirt and pebbles through her fingers, the more firmly she came to one simple conclusion.

She had no idea what to do.

More specifically, there were too many things to consider, too many strings to disentangle, even for someone so used to complex decision-making.

Could she?   
Yes. The most recent updates on her immune-system progress and de-suiting estimates suggested that she was ready for some face-time with her home planet. There was no physical impediment to her becoming intimate. No impediment except, perhaps, for the large physical size of her prime. The thought of it looming over her certainly sparked a frisson of nerves and curiosity. Still, fundamentally, one way or another it would be _possible._

But _should_ she? 

Though in time she believed such things would become irrelevant, some of her people would react very poorly to the news if it got out now. It might even be grounds for her removal as Admiral. And that would be problematic, because she was not being vain when she considered herself to be a highly effective leader for her people. She did not think there were any others ready to step into her suit.   
For all her skills, even Hal'Raala did not have the maturity needed - yet. Tali-Zorah was very young and lacking in confidence. Half the admirals were at war, and her only other Rannoch-side comrade, though he was well respected by many, was seen by some as an appeaser. Many of the captains were so _young_. And thinking like that made her feel old, and lonely. Which was foolish, for multiple reasons. She was neither old nor alone, and it was not as though Raan had exactly felt ready when she'd been made Admiral.   
She would have to amend her thoughts about potential admirals soon, she decided. 

Regardless, they needed her right now, and she couldn't put personal desires ahead of that.

On the other hand, such a risk might mean a great deal to the geth, and to what might be a significant portion of the quarian populace. It might make a difference in cementing the perspective that a true and lasting integration of their peoples could be attained. And perhaps she was not the first. Perhaps there were secret relationships developing all over, and having an Admiral display such companionship would seal the secrecy and taboo at the micro-fracture.

Would there be a cost to denying herself and the Prime? Would her rejection sunder their friendship? She didn't believe so… but the thought of that possible outcome was sharply painful. Not to mention the fact that such a rejection might spread through the geth, altering relationships around the galaxy. It could build a wedge between growing friendships, or worse, add to a fundamental mistrust between their peoples.   
When considered in those terms, could she risk _not_ going through with it? 

And then there was the fact that she _wanted_ this, which was a startling train of thought by itself. That _she_ in particular wanted this. Out of all the Admirals, she would have predicted it would have been Daro'Xen who would be the one having a clandestine sexual experience with a geth Prime. Or even Koris. Not her. She was the most staid of the quarian leadership, the most likely to keep her calm, to not be swayed from practicality by her emotions.

But the want… it was not just with her body - that would have been possible (albeit difficult) to dismiss.   
Alongside her physical needs, there was the desire within her mind and her spirit. She was a quarian, which made her insatiably curious by nature. Yet it was more than that. The prime was a person, an entity of all its own. It was her friend, but it was also more than that.  
Her companion.

And wasn't that something? That her closest companion could be a _geth_.

She hadn't just overcome her preliminary prejudice, she had smashed it to bits. Tali'Zorah, she thought, would be proud of her. All of it was just… amazing. About as astounding as the fact that she was sitting on Rannoch. She laughed, low and light as she tipped her head back to gaze at the clouds. 

For a few minutes she just stared at the sky, leaning back against her hands on the dirt behind her, trailing her fingers through the dust and letting her feet swing over the edge of the ridge. 

No, she didn't know what to do.  
And furthermore, she realized that she truly didn't know what might happen. No matter how thoroughly she evaluated things, she couldn't even come close to figuring it all out. There were too many variables. Too many things she couldn't control or predict.

But what she did know, was that no one ever got anywhere by playing the coward. By hiding behind the old ways of things, the comfort of the past. There were times to be cautious, when the risks outweighed the rewards.

But when there was no clear choice for one to make? When the risks and benefits and more were unfathomable?

Well… one did what her people had done for centuries - perhaps longer. Perhaps always.

 

One took a chance.


	8. Yes

"Yes." 

It swiveled abruptly to face her, optics dilating wide as it gazed at her from where it sat exactly as she had left it hours earlier. It stood smoothly, taking one large step nearer to her to gaze at her fully.

"Yes, I wish to be your companion, fully. Yes, I would like to explore sexual behaviors with you," she said, coming further into their living room, letting the door slide shut behind her. She paused a few feet away from where the prime stood, perfectly still as only an inorganic could be. 

She took a deep breath and continued, "But this would need to be private. It would not be something we could share with others right now. I do not know how they would react."

It tilted its head forward slightly. She knew privacy was a difficult concept for the geth.  
"Would that be acceptable to you?" she asked, stepping forward and placing her small hands on its forearms, looking up into its optics towering high above her.

Slowly, with great caution, it lifted its hands up to frame her ribcage, head-plates shifting slightly.  
"Yes."

"When would you like to begin exploring the sexual component of our relationship? I am ready now, or we can choose another time," she said.

"People often use their days of rest for sexual exertions," prime quoted by way of answer. She laughed and, as always, it dipped its optics forward to watch her reaction. 

"Yes," it added.

"Yes," she replied.

She stepped back and lifted her arm so that she could access her omni-tool. The first thing she did was key a privacy lock on all the doors and put a filter on all the windows. The house responded to her commands, near-silent adjustments made as the doors cycled closed and windows shaded. The small holographic interfaces changed from green to orange.

The next thing she did was far more momentous. She went into her suit commands, into the rarely used subroutines and keyed in her passcode for her primary suit control. Like her house, the change was barely noticeable. Silently the seals and locks began to cycle open, and her suit injected her body with a final immuno-support booster. Tiny huge changes.

Confident that they would now be protected from prying eyes, she took the prime by the hand, curling her fingers around one large digit. It studied her motion silently.

"Come with me?" she asked, gesturing toward her bedroom. 

"Yes," it replied.

She began walking there and the prime kept perfect pace with her. The room was spacious. There was little furniture save a large bed, and few of her personal possessions had been recovered from the wreckage of the Tonbay. She had hardly personalized the space, but it was certainly her bedroom, familiar and intimate.

She paused in the center of the room, turning to face the prime. She gazed up at it, letting go of its hand as she studied the prime. It was waiting, hands hovering in the air between them.

"What would you like to do?" she asked, voice soft under its usual raspy layer.

There was a long silence, and then a faint glitching sound came from the prime as it processed. As the silence stretched longer it seemed that the prime was unable to come to a consensus. It was sometimes a difficult question for any lover. For a new lover, such communication was even more important. For a pair so different, so new as she and the prime, it was absolutely necessary.

"Many sexual encounters begin by simple touching of each other's bodies. Becoming familiar with their form, touching private places as a prelude to more stimulating sexual behaviors that come later," she suggested, folding her hands at her waist.

"Would you like to touch me?"

There was another brief silence, then it replied firmly, "Yes."

"You may do so," she said, stepping a little closer. "You may touch me anywhere you wish."

It paused for a moment, then reached abruptly for her hand, lifting her delicate fingers to cradle in its own. She watched as it dipped its head to examine her palm and stroke its broad thumbs over it. So simple was the touch, but it had her skin tingling inside her suit beneath the touch. After a moment, it took her other hand as well and cupped the both of them between its much larger ones, studying them as one might a precious object. Then, gently, it lowered her hands back to her sides.

Slowly it lifted its hands to touch her shoulders, fingers lifted to frame her face which she tilted up to it. Not that her face was very visible behind the thick faceplate. Slowly its digits slipped down along the curve of her shoulders and over her collarbones and down her chest. It caressed her with aching slowness, hands pressing firmly against the supple curve of her breasts.  
Excitement sparked through her body, radiating out from the tips of her breasts and in tangled webs through her belly. It pressed firmly on the underside of her breasts, kneading them tighter up in her suit though there was little space for movement.   
This time when its hands slid down past the curves of her chest they moved blatantly down to the vee at her hips. The sensation of the prime slipping two large digits between her thighs to press against her sex was overwhelming even though it was dampened by the thick material of her suit. 

"May I touch you?" she asked.

It's head-plates flared as though in surprise. Or perhaps anticipation. Its hands fell away, which left her body tingling with disappointment.  
"Yes," it replied.

Slowly she reached up and set her hands on the prime's chest, tracing the edges of the large plates, then dipping closer under the armored lip to touch the more pliant sinew of its core. Its hands hovered either side of her as it gazed down to follow the path of her fingers over its body. 

After only a moment's hesitation, she let her hands glide downward, over the array of plates that covered its pelvis following a similar path to the one her prime had traced on her own body. The small plates were still pressed tightly together, held in place by a few sinewy cables that connected the curved plates over its hips to its pelvis. She did not linger too long there, letting her fingers follow the cables over to its hips and back up to its waist. She ran her hands up as high as she could reach, which was barely to its shoulders with it standing slightly bent towards her.

She touched the edge of its bottom-most face-plate.

"Can you feel that?" she asked, stroking a finger along it.

"My mobile platform is equipped with numerous pressure, vibration, electrical, chemical, and motion sensors."   
It paused a moment, then tipped its head down towards her so that the plate pressed more firmly against the flat of her palm. "Yes," it added. 

She was curious about what it felt, but was not quite certain what to ask. Despite a military knowledge of the geth, she did not have a technician's detailed knowledge of how the mobile-platform's sensory capabilities were translated into the geth consciousness. For a long moment she just held her hand there, thumb running faintly along the edge of the plate. 

Her body was certainly urging her to explore further and analyze less. She traced the curve of the ring that surrounded the triad of optical sensors that were trained on her, dilating and constricting occasionally as it watched her actions.   
After a moment, it lifted a digit to mimic her, tracing along the curved edge of her face mask, cupping her cheek, the headdress fabric draping around its hand. Raan leaned into its touch, leaned against its thick arm. 

The prime straightened slightly and drew her forward by the hand on her cheek. She moved with it, hand falling from the head she could no longer reach, drifting closer till her smaller form was pressed against it completely. Her neck was craned back, looking up at it as the prime craned its neck down equally to gaze at her. She let her hands move slowly over its sides until she wrapped her arms around its waist as far as she could reach. Its hands stroked similarly along her back until they were simply holding each other.

"It is time, I think, that I showed you my face," she murmured.

 

"Yes," it replied.


	9. Bared

There was one more thing to do, and that was to signal a full suit shutdown to her suit computer. Bringing up her arm to access her omni-tool's interface, she opened up the suit menu once more, finding the final shutdown routines. It was the work of but a moment, and yet it was the work of months of preparation and years - decades of anticipation.

The code flitted across her HUD, and then her suit went completely silent, gone into hibernation for a few hours at least.   
She lifted both hands to her face, tipping her head down slightly to help herself find the catches that would release the last physical clasp holding her mask to her head. There was a faint hissing as the last bit of pressure equalized between her internal environment and the air around her.

That was the first assault on her senses. It had been so long since she had smelled anything but the purified air inside her suit. Now she smelled dust and warmth and a faint metallic and oily scent which she presumed came in part from the geth before her. The plate came fully free then and fell the last centimeter into her waiting palms. 

When she lifted her face she was immediately surprised at the vivid color of the Prime's body, the blue glow of its many tiny eezo cores, the pale light of its optics, the blue-silver sheen of its body-plates. 

Its face-plates flexed as it leaned its head in closer, optics dilating wide as it studied her face. It let out a small grinding chirrup as though surprised, fingers drifting up towards her head but hovering centimeters away from touching as it stared.

It had been a long time since she had seen her own face, though she imagined that her skin was still a pale violet, her markings still a vivid maroon. She turned to set the face-plate aside, but as she moved, her prime moved with her, maintaining its line-of-sight with her face as if tethered there. As she set the suit-piece down she smiled softly at the geth. The prime's optics dilated wildly at the motion. It lifted a finger to her lips, touching the curving edges hesitantly. The simple touch was a powerful sensation to lips that had touched nothing from the outside world in so long.

She wondered what she looked like to the prime with its triad of optical sensors. Did it see her in layers, of infrared and other light spectrums? Did it use edge-detection and topographical arrays? Did it process those images in a composite, or in parallel, seeing her in more ways than one at any given moment?

Could it see that her eyes were bright and reflective, and faintly green? Or at least, she assumed they still were. And did it know what her smile meant? 

"Thank you," the prime said, startling her slightly after its long silence. "We are… moved."

The sound of its voice was so much richer than she had expected, so much more complex in each tone that was uttered. The audio in her suit was excellent, but there was always some loss of the physical vibrations of the air and the purity of sound. She tilted her head, knowing that some day she would have to ask the geth more about such things as emotions. For now, she took its words at face value.

"And I thank you, for being my companion and my friend these past months," she replied quietly, lips moving against the polymer of its finger as she spoke. And her own voice! The sound of her voice without the vocalizer was another surprising experience.

"Yes," it agreed.

She smiled again, amused by the fact that her expression could now be seen clearly.  
"I would like to show all of myself to you," she said after a moment.

"We are unanimous," it replied, lifting its hand from her lips to give her freedom to move even though its curled digits hung in the air between them. She laughed lightly, and its head dipped forward again to watch her face, now fully visible and moving in humor.  
The process of removing one's suit was a long and layered one. But it was one she knew, even if she was not practiced. First she continued the process of baring her head. She removed the loose fabric head dress from its clips and unclasped the neck of her suit. 

Despite the apparent similarity of the draping fabric to human hair, it was not such an analogy for quarians. Her kind had never needed the adaptation of body hair, even before leaving Rannoch. The low insect content of the planet's ecosystems had made it an unnecessary feature, evolutionarily speaking. She tipped her head back and pulled the full head piece off for the first time in memory since donning it. She set these pieces aside too. When she looked back, her prime appeared to be studying the way her maroon markings fanned over he eye-ridge where a human had hair, and where they trailed back around her face and neck, spreading in a unique pattern over her scalp. Expressivity _was_ an adaptive feature, the marks serving to highlight the muscles of the face and contours of the head.

She paused for a moment then, letting the prime gaze at her. It touched her face gently, traced the ridges on her head. She let her eyes drift closed at the caress, savoring the tingling feel of being touched again. Eventually, it stepped back slightly and gazed down at her remaining suited bodyparts.

As always, the prime seemed fascinated by her hands, so much smaller than its own. When she tugged the seals loose on her forearm, separating the glove portion of her suit, its hands lifted to frame her outstretched arm in anticipation.  
She laughed as she tugged the glove downward, and the prime glanced quickly between her face and her hand as though it couldn't decide which to focus its primary optics upon. The hand won out as the glove came free. Setting the glove down, she extended her bare hand. It was immediately scooped up into the large palm of her companion.

The composite material of its hands was a strange thing to feel. To her surprise, the Prime was warm to the touch. She tilted her head in thought as it touched her arm, half-distracted by the firm polymer of its surface layer stroking over the slim length of her forearm. Eventually she recalled her knowledge of common geth construction; fully distributed heat management. Warm to the touch. One of the effects of the distributed eezo cores. 

It stroked its digits over her skin, evaluating the new sensation thoroughly. And the sensation was novel for both of them. By the time it had run its fingers over her arm completely three times, she was almost trembling. She lifted her free hand to begin unsealing the clasps at her shoulder.

She slipped the piece off, and the prime's hands stroked up her arm, encircling the limb easily with long digits. It touched every inch of the newly exposed flesh, then raised its arms in anticipation of her removal of the next suit piece. Her other arm was bared next, then her feet. 

Each piece she removed was met with fervent observation and methodical caresses, as though the prime sought to memorize her very being. And it likely was, too, measuring her spans, testing her elastic skin, indexing her temperatures and her wavelengths. All her data were likely being catalogued. And in that respect, briefly, she wished her own data collection were not so imperfect, that she could learn these moments as perfectly as they were experienced. The feelings of closeness and companionships. The tingling arousal vibrating steady beneath her surface. The sensations of her homeworld. 

The belting and clasps over her abdomen were released next, allowing access to the larger and more central pieces of her suit. These pieces required a little more effort to unseal, but it was not long before she had them loosened and slipping from her body.

Finally, she was completely bare, standing in the open air of Rannoch, breathing unfiltered, skin uncovered.   
She took a deep breath, savoring the taste and smell of the air. She let the breath out aloud as a chuckle in her low raspy voice, just to hear herself with her own ears. And then she lifted her arms to touch the prime's chest, reaching high to tug its head down closer to hers. She ran her hands along the curve of its head-plate and smiled up at it. She brushed her lips against the edge of its face-plate, then let her hands drift down the hard planes of its chest and abdomen to the array of plates at its pelvis.

"Your turn," she said.


	10. Synchronicity

There was no suit to remove, no features to reveal. She had already seen the prime's newest addition to its body. Yet somehow it was still a precious experience, still new somehow. She stepped back a half step to gaze over the prime, tipping her head back to gaze at its optics, then study the complicated array of cables that connected its head unit to the core structure of its torso. She let her hands come up to hover in the air over its body, tracing the curve of its shoulders without touching, looking with as much intent as it had examined her body.

The lines of its simulated flesh were beautiful in their functional elegance, and their reflection of their creators. She took its hand in her own two smaller ones, turning it over and slipping the pads of her fingers over the ridged polymer analogue on it's hands. The ridges flexed under her touch, the material designed to help them cling to surfaces no quarian could grip. 

She followed the path it had taken, kneeling down before the prime to touch the ridges and joints of its feet, the long hard exoskeletal plates of its lower-legs. The synthetic sinew was appealing, like lines of muscle and tendons on a fit organic. She let her fingers dip into the curve at the back of its knee, exploring further into the exposed workings of the joint, pushing her own boundaries in her exploration, trying not to limit herself by her preconceptions about intimacy with organics. To look and feel with an open mind.

Her hands slid up the curve of its thigh plates as she stood, and then finally, she settled her hands on its waist and stroked her palms down over the array of plates and cables at its pelvis. She let her hands come down and folded them, settling them at her waist as she gazed up at the prime. She smiled, and it lifted a digit to touch the corner of her mouth. Then it tipped it's head down to gaze at its abdomen. 

Its plates slid aside slowly, reconfiguring to reveal the shaft of blue-grey synthetic material pressed vertically into a small depression in its abdomen. The plates were snugged tightly against its body, and then the shaft slid forward and down. It continued adjusting until it was extended fully from its hips. It was smaller than she had last seen it. Or at least so she thought. It was still startlingly large.

"You have altered it?" she asked, looking up. The prime also shifted its gaze from the phallus to her face. 

"Yes. We considered your suggestion that it might be too large. We decided that a compromise between proportionality and average size would be effective for providing for your female anatomy."

A compromise… it still seemed intimidatingly sized. Slowly she reached forward with both hands, ready to touch the distended phallus. She hesitated, fingertips hovering over the surface. The prime stood frozen, gazing down at her hand.

"Can you feel pleasure?" she asked as her fingers dipped to make contact for the first time. 

Its optics shifted to her face and its headplates flared. It hesitated, then looked down at her tiny hands closing over the protrusion. "No data available," it said finally.

That had her hesitating, and she looked up at it when she tightened her grip, stroking her six fingers over its length. 

"That is an intriguing array of haptic data," it said, optics riveted to her movements.

A suitably unfathomable answer for an unfathomable situation. But at the very least, she presumed new data were always better than none so she continued her exploration. She began with slow methodical strokes similar to the ones her body had been receiving at the prime's hands. Similar to a touch she might offer to an organic analogue. It was warm to the touch with the heat coming from the distributed eezo cores that were interspersed in the flexible polymer, giving it a faint blue glow at various points. There were other small bumps and curves along its length that appeared to be sensors. She circled a fingertip around one.

"Haptic?" she asked, tilting her head.

It's hand came up to settle beside hers, cupping the shaft. It touched a fingertip next to her smaller one. "Haptic," it agreed. She moved her finger to another similar but not-identical bump. It's finger followed hers.

"Motion."

Their fingers moved again, and it continued its list. "Chemical. Lubrication dispersal port. Electrical. Vibration. Optic."  
She paused over that last one. Then she laughed faintly, in surprise, in awe of the moment, the strangeness of it all, the honesty and innocence of curiosity.

"I think that will provide you with some very interesting data," she said.

It nodded firmly in response, using the gesture it had picked up from spending time with her and the other quarians.  
Though the shaft was quite analogous to the quarian anatomy, there were some differences at the base. Instead of shapes representing male gonads, there were two smaller hemispheres set above the shaft, resembling more closely the shapes of the female quarian's clitorises. These shapes, however, were oriented in a vertical line rather than a horizontal configuration like that of a quarian female's.

"What are these?" she asked, feathering a touch over the curved shapes.

"They are an adaptation based on my research. They are…," The prime hesitated for a long moment before continuing. "In a brief search of available databases there appears to be no appropriate name."

"Then perhaps I should ask what their purpose is?"

"They are designed to stimulate the clitorises. Is this deviation inappropriate?" it asked. 

She laughed. "No. Certainly novel. But not inappropriate. You are very creative," she said, touching the shapes again.

"Yes," the prime agreed, eliciting another laugh.

She continued her light exploration, cataloguing every difference, every detail of design. She was not too proud to admit that part of her willingness to delay was because she was nervous about what was sure to come next. It wasn't that she didn't want to proceed. She did. She very much wanted to, both with her mind and with her body. It was simply the fact that the phallus was still much larger than any analogous parts that had ever been inside her. Admittedly, given the inherent risks of sexual exploration for a suit-bound quarian, she hadn't ever really pushed her limits. She would be pushing them now.

But if it all went horribly wrong, they would simply be learning from each other once more. She mustered her confidence and turned towards her bed. She took the prime's hand to draw it after her as she neared it.

"Come sit with me," she said, crawling up onto the mattress and settling into the center of the bed. "Come touch me."

The prime sat carefully beside her, it's massive weight depressing the surface and tilting her towards it. She leaned back, lifting her feet to settle against its thighs. It turned, dipping forward over her, gazing at her then lower to where her legs gapped apart slightly and the apex of her thighs was more visible.

After a moment's hesitation, the prime curved its huge hands over her knees and steadily pressed them wide, baring her sex to him in a motion borne more of efficiency than grace. And yet it was still sensual, still beautiful in the desire to explore, to share themselves with each other. Her breath was tight in her throat. Every moment of this was unexpected, the differences stark in even the simplest things. The rush of the excitement, of anticipation and of having waited for so long, each contributed to the heat and tingling that rolled through her body at each thought, each breath.

Its head bowed down, moving its optics closer to the delicate violet curve of her outer lips. It reached forward with one hand and slid it along her seam. Abruptly it nudged the finger into the divide, pressing the halves apart with a knuckle. It ran the knuckle slowly back and up the hot channel. She shuddered as the digit brushed between her clitoral nubs, the sheer width of the digit making the stroke firm. It froze, tilting its optics to look at her face, assessing her reaction.

"Oh," she managed, "that is a good sensation."

It repeated the motion, watching her carefully as her abdomen clenched slightly at the pulse of sensation from the intimate touch. It slid the digit lower again and found the circle of her opening, pressing the pad of its digit there against the smooth skin, spreading the edges of her opening. Then it pressed forward slowly. The smooth skin around her entrance dragged at the polymer of the prime's surface, although her body was providing some natural lubrication. Even the single finger felt startlingly large. It had been a very long time since anything had entered her. 

Like all its motions, the finger pressed into her evenly and steadily until it was brushing against the back of her inner walls. She saw it tilt its optics, considering the sight of its finger half-embedded in her body. Then she felt it bend the tip of the digit to curve down under her cervix, the ridges on the pad of its finger rippling against the muscle. It was a novel sensation to say the least. It traced its way around inside her just as it had done over her surface, caressing the muscles inside her which tightened reflexively over its movements.

Slowly it removed the digit and paused, gazing down at her.   
"We wish to provide you companionship as an organic would, but…"

"But?" she prompted.

"We are… uncertain how to proceed."

"Not enough data?" she asked, smiling.

"Too many. Through our searches of relevant data from the extranet, there are approximately 3492 behavioral options at this point. 38 of which are highly common possibilities. 14 of which would likely apply to us."

She considered a moment. 

"Are any of those appealing to you?"

The prime's head-plates flared. "All of them," it replied.

She laughed. She reached forward and touched the tip of the shaft angling up from its hips. 

"Any one of them more-so than the others?"

It hesitated, optics constricting as it considered. It paused for a long moment until it made a glitching sound. She smiled, setting a hand on its arm. "Would you prefer if I chose?"

"Yes."

"Very well," she said, leaning back again onto her elbows, spreading herself out on the bed and reveling in the sensations of the fabric and air on her skin. She pondered a moment, rolling over possibilities in her mind. Though she was educated on the subject, her own experience was limited. Then again, no experience would have prepared her for this.

"I think perhaps tradition is a good place to start," she said quietly, smiling softly at the prime. "A quarian pair will often start their sexual relationship by meeting in a neutral position of balance before engaging in penetration or stimulation. It allows for each person to shift and react, learning each other's preferences and limitations at a very simple level. It is only a base, and if either wishes to change things, that is quite acceptable. Does that appeal to you?" 

The prime nodded an affirmative and she laughed faintly with the wonder of it all. At the openness. For all its novelty, its strangeness, it was one of the most free discussions about sex she had ever had. There were no expectations - how could there be? Each moment was new, unalloyed.

Raan sat all the way up, sliding further up the bed and then settling on her bottom, moving her feet apart in an even spread, centered where she sat. 

"We can begin by you kneeling on the bed here, between my legs," she said, pressing her palms against the fabric between her spread thighs. "Then I can loop mine over yours and we can sit together."

It responded almost immediately, turning its hips to face her fully and moving closer on the bed. It slid forward in a move that was unnervingly graceful, its knees coming to rest beneath her thighs. The metallic surface was strange against her skin which had felt nothing but the soft lining of her suit for so long. It was smooth and firm against her skin, so fascinatingly similar to her own quarian makeup, yet so different. 

"This will allow us to find balance and prepare to put your phallus inside me," she said as she lifted her legs so that the sweeping shape of her limbs settled over the similar but larger shape of the geth's. It took a bit of adjusting to find where she could sit and find balance, given the difference in their size. She didn't know if the tradition was something from before the suits or after. The talk of balance and exchange was certainly something that was reflected in their intimacies during the simple and sparse rituals around joining of suits. Perhaps it was something that went back further. Regardless, it was one which appealed to her.

Eventually she settled, feeling centered and yet connected to the prime. She lifted her hands to settle against its chest, looking up at its optics and smiling. Its own tri-fingered hands lifted to touch her cheeks, then drift down to settle on her shoulders as she slipper her hands down to the angular dip at its waist. She was glad that the prime was warm, that it felt alive to her at a visceral level. Tilting her head forward, she pressed her cheek to its chest and sat, breathing in the connection for a moment. Perhaps the synchrony she felt was an illusion, but it mattered to her. This was truly companionship. Sexual pleasure was secondary to the intimacy of sexual contact here. 

But, her body reminded her, tingling at the thought, sexual pleasure was also why they were here. As they drew as close as their bodies allowed, it settled the phallus against her nether-lips. She shuddered at the pressure bumping against her clits, at anticipation for what was to come. It was heavy, densely constructed. She looked down at the shaft settled against her, long enough to be clearly seen though their bodies shaded the space between them. Wide enough that it seemed almost to touch her thighs on either side of her mound. A flutter of nerves ran through her chest.

"You... mentioned a lubrication port?" she asked as she reached down to feather her fingertips over the tip hovering over her mound. 

Again, the response was immediate, clear fluid spreading over the surface of the shaft and onto her body. More than enough. She could feel it slipping down the curve of her backside, slick and sensual.

"I think I am ready for you to enter me," she said quietly.

The prime considered a moment, then slipped its hands down and, as though she were completely weightless, lifted her hips slightly so that her entrance was perfectly in line with its phallus. She managed to slip her gracefully arced legs over the divot in the waist-plate on either side of prime's hips. It pressed the lubricant-drenched curved tip of its length against the firm skin of her slit. Though it had some flexion to it, it was unyielding, even more so than even the hardest of quarian cocks. She reached down to spread the lips of her sex, opening herself to it. 

Then, with no more preamble, it pressed evenly and inexorably forward.

"Oh Keelah'," she moaned, gasping hard as she was stretched sharply against the invading member. Prime stopped its forward motion abruptly.

"Am I causing you pain, Raan?" it asked, head plates flaring and its optics shifting to a more alarming (or perhaps alarmed) shade of orange.

"Some," she gasped, hand fluttering against its much larger one on her hip.

She could feel the gush of more lubricant inside her, but it had little room to work its purpose. It gripped her hips firmly in its hands and began driving forward again. She gasped for the breath to tell it to wait, to give her time to adjust. She had none. When she felt the curved head of the shaft pressing firmly against the furthest wall inside her she looked down in amazement. There was still at least a hand's-span of length between her body and the prime's, though not for lack of it trying. It was pushing firmly against her body still, stretching her around it. Abruptly it stopped and began pulling out from her.

"Wait," she managed, overwhelmed with sensation.

"We have made an error in our construction," it said, going still at her behest. 

She took a few slow breaths, settling her head back on its chest. "Perhaps so," she agreed. 

It moved to withdraw from her again. "Perhaps we should adjust the construction."

She tightened her feet around its hips, stopping it. 

"Wait," she said again, still trying to catch her breath. She had never felt anything resembling the sensation of being so completely filled. The perfection of its stillness helped, cradled as she was, floating in the air. She had only the focus of letting her body adjust slowly but steadily until the pain was gone and the shock of penetration had once more grown towards anticipation. 

"I think we can proceed today, though I agree, some adjustment may be in order for the future."

Its head-plates flared, then settled, its optics returning to their traditional color, trusting her assurance.   
"How shall we proceed?" it asked. 

"Most quarians find pleasure in the friction from thrusting into and onto each other, like we have begun to do. If you withdraw your phallus most of the way, then press it back in, I think I will find it pleasurable and you will find it… sensational."

It nodded its head, then dipped it to gaze down between them in concentration. This time when it began to withdraw she did not stop it. The pull of its length against her entrance was an exquisite torture, done slowly and so steadily.   
It pressed forward again, and even as she drew breath to warn it against pressing too deeply, it stopped at what felt like the same depth it had before. 

Though her body was held in its hands, she could move a little, and she rocked her hips, providing her own counterpart to the motion.

"And we can move together," she said, repeating the motion. It responded by withdrawing as she did so, beginning a coordinated pattern. Its optics roamed her body, studying the motion of the muscles in her abdomen and thighs, the rise and fall of her breasts as they moved together. Each thrust became a little easier, and a little more pleasurable as her body caught on to the idea. 

"This is good," she said, voice a little more raspy than usual. Raan tipped her head back soaking up the sensation, and the aching counterpart of her clits, as of yet unstimulated directly. The construction the prime had adapted for that purpose was too far away since the shaft was too long. Just as well - it would be too much for her right now, she thought.

"Yes," it replied.

Slowly and steadily their pace increased, each keeping up with the other, rhythm never faltering. With the pace came the pleasure, the waves of sensation catching each other in the backwash, building to larger and stronger waves each time. She _ached_. Oh how she ached.

"More?" it asked, and without thinking she agreed with a firm - if breathy "yes."

There was a pulse inside her, and suddenly, like a shockwave, she felt an explosion of sensation at her core. She cried out, spine bowing as sensation rocketed through her. It hurt almost, yet was equally pleasurable. Whatever it was, it _felt_ more powerfully than anything she had experienced before. 

"What was that?" she managed to ask as it stroked out of her, leaving tingling sensations in its wake before thrusting deeply again.

"Because this construction is not organic, we have studied other non-organic constructions of a similar nature. Asari designs frequently incorporate electric pulses in their devices. I have adapted this technology."

It hesitated, buried inside her. "What is your opinion?"

She blinked, and then laughed, almost giddy with it all, throwing back her head and smiling up at the prime. "Insufficient data available," she said.

The response was almost immediate, another pulse erupted through her cunt, causing involuntary spasms in her abdomen, body bowing tightly against it as they both resumed their thrusting motions. This one was longer, causing her motions to stutter as her body flared in overwhelming pleasure and activation. 

"Oh, yes," she groaned, and her approval was met with another pulse, sending her writhing in response. When she sagged almost bonelessly against it, it leaned back slightly, accommodating her angle and lifted her bodily to continue the thrusting, slipping her up its length, then bringing her down again with a firm pull. Though she tried hard to participate, her legs were useless as the prime fucked her. Their pace did not relent, nor did the overwhelming pulses and she clung to the prime throat choking over stifled, tangled moans of pleasure.

When she arched back, writhing in orgasm, its optics flashed white, completely dilated. It emitted a glitching sound of too many of its platforms attempting to vocalize at one time. The orgasm was as unrelenting as the geth, and so powerful it almost hurt. Finally her muscles relented and she gasped a breath.

"Enough," she said, body still shaking. "Stop."

The prime froze, and she slumped against it, face hot against the more temperate surface of the prime.

Withdrawing slowly from her body it lowered her gently to the bed. She let herself fall back onto the cloth, almost dizzy with the experience. She was gasping in the open air, high on the sensation of full-body freedom. Of sensation itself. Of connection. Her hand touched the prime's, still settled against her hip.

"You are satisfied?" it asked quietly.

She did not answer for a long moment as she considered the question, taking the peace of the patient silences they so often shared with each other. 

"Satisfaction... it is such a final word." she mused, still catching her breath.

"Is this not finite?"

"Yes," she agreed, lifting her gaze to the prime, sitting up slowly so that she sat against it once more, finding balance again. "And yet not. I suppose what I mean is, there is more to come for us. We still have so much to experience," she said, touching the prime's hand. "We have so much to learn."

"Yes, we do," it agreed.

She smiled. Its headplates flared.

Because it wasn't the we of a multiplatform consciousness. It was a special we, a precious word, one that was both finite and infinite at once. 

 

The sun was high outside her window.


End file.
